Pilot killed in small plane crash on Cuttyhunk

CUTTYHUNK ISLAND — A Wilmington, Del. man died this morning when the small plane he was piloting crashed on Cuttyhunk Island, according to state police.

Allen P. Spaulding Jr., 70, was the sole occupant of the plane which crashed nose-down in a cluster of trees near a landing strip, state police said.

They declined to release any details of his flight plan, but Dukes County Sheriff Michael McCormack told The Cape Cod Times the plane was taking off from a small, private landing strip in the southeastern portion of the island when it clipped some trees and crashed.

Cuttyhunk Fire Chief Seth Garfield said Spaulding was a legal resident of Wilmington, but he was “a local islander” well known to most Cuttyhunk residents.Coast Guard spokesman Myeonghi Clegg said a crew was dispatched to the scene to extricate the pilot from the plane.

State police described the plane as a 1965, four-passenger, fixed-wing Maule Bee Dee M-4-210.

The investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing by state police, Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission.